January 12, 2000 -- With the goal of freeing up some space in the tasting fridge, we recently held a KTT of miscellaneous beers. Present were: Gary Gillman, avid beer aficionado and KTT semi-regular; Josh Oakes, publisher of the on-line Beer Manifesto (www.netcom.ca/~jdoakes) and recent arrival to Ontario from his former British Columbia home; and Gary Miko, beer amateur and World of Beer Central's new landlord.

First up was Upper Canada Rebellion, a brand whose glory years seemed to be long behind it by the time that the Toronto-based Upper Canada Brewing Company was sold to Sleeman Brewing of Guelph, Ontario. The question was what had Sleeman made of the once-excellent märzen.

In order to suppress prejudices, I served the Rebellion to my tasters blind, and each of them reacted with great enthusiasm. "Full-flavoured" and "well integrated taste" were a couple of the comments, to which I would add well-structured, pleasingly balanced and damn tasty. It is nice to see this beer restored to its former beauty. (Now, if only I could find the beer! Since the tasting, repeated attempts to buy Rebellion have yielded only frustration and I have now grown accustomed to "out-of-stock" as a response to my requests.)

From Upper Canada we shifted to the "upper north," as we sampled a pair of beers from the newly renamed Yukon Brewing Company, formerly Chilkoot Brewing, of Whitehorse, Yukon. The brews in question were Yukon Gold, the renamed and apparently reformulated Chilkoot Pale Ale, and Arctic Red, a malty, 5.5% ale.

The Yukon Gold was met with less enthusiasm than the Arctic Red. Josh, quite familiar with the Chilkoot Pale from his days in BC, agreed with my assessment (based upon more limited exposure to the beer) that the revamped Gold was a much different beer than the previously lauded Chilkoot Pale. Gone were the decent hopping and well-balanced malt, replaced by a much thinner, less complicated and, I think, a more mass market-oriented taste. Gary Gillman picked up on a slight smokiness, which eluded me, and even Gary Miko, without a whole lot of craft beer experience to draw upon, was disappointed in what he saw as a lack of character.

The Arctic Red, on the other hand, fared much better. As in my first tasting of this beer, I was quite impressed with its full, rich, fruity aroma and robust, warming body. Gary Gillman was similarly impressed with the Red's aromatics and texture, while Josh commended the style but offered the observation that this too had been changed from the Chilkoot beer he used to drink.

The War of 1812 Ale from the Sackets Harbor Brewing Company of upstate New York came next, and its arrival was not greeted well. We all agreed that the aroma sported the big time buttery notes of a beer laden with diacetyl, although both of the Garys were able to get past it and give the beer a quiet murmur of ascent. Josh and I, meanwhile, were much more critical of the 1812, citing conflicting flavours and, as Josh put it, a "wonky" character.

Our next beer hailed from the Brasserie Lancelot of the Brittany region of France and was, appropriately enough, called Cervoise Lancelot. Named not for the knight of legend but the owner of the brewery, Lancelot is an herbed beer that caught everybody's attention with its big, minty, fruity and slightly medicinal nose, in which I also perceived notes of rosemary. The start is sweet and a bit herbal, but the big blast of herbs is saved for the middle of the taste where resiny herbs (more rosemary and perhaps tarragon, among others) combine with some faint apricot. This complex and intriguing ale prompted much discussion and had everyone at the table wishing that we had another bottle or two with which to continue our conversation.

Sure enough, they did. Gary Gillman thought it "great" and noted that the combination of beer and cognac enhanced the flavours of each, while Gary Miko offered the observation that since he was a big fan of cognac and also partial to beer, the marriage of the two was, for him, superb. The only downside, we agreed, was that this was another beer of which we had only a single bottle.

Search The Real Beer Library For More Articles Related To: Upper Canada Brewing, Yukon Brewing, X.O., Lancelot

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